


Persistence

by gwyllion



Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-20
Updated: 2010-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-04 10:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/709567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwyllion/pseuds/gwyllion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was written for the Music and Lyrics Challenge.  Thanks to heathyluv for the quick and dirty beta.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Persistence

Cassie tossed her keys onto the counter. The jangle echoed off the sparse kitchen walls in the tiny apartment. She shoveled a scoop of instant coffee into her only mug and ran the tap until the water felt too hot on her painted fingernails.

Down the hall, Mrs. Brewer’s baby wailed.

The steam rose and she pushed the mug under the spout, giving the contents a stir with a bent metal fork. She took a sip mid-stride across the living room and plunked down in the battered easy chair, depositing her liquid breakfast on a wobbly end table. A drip of umber washed over the mug’s edge to stain the white napkin, collected from some distant McDonald’s or Burger King or any one of the Drive-thrus she may have visited in the years since she moved to Riverton. 

Somewhere in the building, a muffled mother’s voice cried, “Don’t forget your homework.” The outer door opened to let some child escape into the promise of another school day.

Cassie bent at her slim waist to unfasten the laces of her wedges. The light fell full through the solitary window, sunbeams making patterns on the shag carpet, illuminating the room’s dim wooden paneling, morphing it into a dusky half-gray. She kicked off her shoes the rest of the way and swung her legs over the arm of the chair, her bare feet dangling into the space between the ventilation duct and the recliner’s torn fabric.

A dozen hours needed to pass before she had to report for her shift. Monday nights were slow, an inconvenience when trying to save for her tuition. She ran through her mental list of things to do between now and the time she would heft a tray of pitchers, swaying to avoid the grubby hands that reached out to grope her ass. The laundry beckoned and paperwork for Fall Semester awaited completion, she needed to see a doctor for the ache in her back that wouldn’t go away and for the varicose veins that had begun to appear on her calves.

She sighed heavily into the silence.

No matter how she tried, none of her impending tasks would occupy her mind enough to make her forget the real issue, the one that she only let bother her when she was safe in the confines of her own apartment walls. Tears welled in her eyes, overflowed and spilled down her cheeks, a luxury she rarely allowed herself to feel.

It had happened again. Just like the last time when he returned from a fishing trip with his buddy. That distant look, where once he had seemed to enjoy her company, spending the night with him in his dismal trailer. He had been gone for a week, for Chrissake. Couldn’t he at least act like he was happy to see her?

She sniffed back the drip from her running nose.

All she wanted was some attention. She must have done something to deserve his neglect. Yes, she convinced herself. This was her fault. She had draped herself over his shoulders while he sat at his kitchen chair, nursing a beer.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” she said, the permanent smile in her voice, her impossibly tiny hands rubbing the soreness out of his neck.

He only grunted something about being tired, the long drive back from the Tetons never got any easier.

“Did somethin’ happen there?” she asked, trying to pry a corner off his lidded thoughts. “Have a fight with your friend? Some kinda misunderstandin’?”

He shoved his chair out from the table and strode to the television, flipping it on with a cracked plastic knob that always fell off when he tried to adjust the sound. It clattered to the floor and rolled in an arc of semi-circled regularity.

“We can talk about it,” she said, soothing, plucking the knob from the stained linoleum, her mind far from her own cares. “I have grumpy days, too,” she added, with a soft touch of her hand on his arm, as if to compare his grief to her own.

He took a swig from the bottle and slumped onto what passed for a bed.

“Hey,” she said, sitting next to him uninvited. “We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.” She let her hand snake over the fabric of his shirt, undoing buttons along the way. That seemed to get his attention. If she couldn’t win him with words, there were other ways.

Yes, that’s what she would do, she thought with resolve. She didn’t need his permission to protect him. She didn’t need his permission to love him. She’d be there for him when he came around, no matter what. That was her way.

He left in the morning without a word, on his way to Stoutamire’s to beg for his old job back, no doubt.

Cassie wiped her tears and stretched her legs out so her toes touched the wall. He was no catch, with his ornery daughters and bitchy ex-wife. Even with these moods he would get into once in awhile, she still saw him as an answer to her loneliness.

She drained the cup of lukewarm coffee, and planted her feet on the floor to begin her day. There was nothing he could do that would make her stop trying to love him. Perhaps she needed to be more persistent.

[The Pretenders ~ I’ll Stand by You](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maAyfcO-X3k)


End file.
